This blog is devoted to evaluating vulnerable Democratic candidates, political news, law and current affairs. Author is a Political consultant specializing in opposition research for conservative candidates, attorneys and PACS at the local, state, and federal level.
“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.”
― Patrick Henry

Last week brought raging Colorado wildfires and a
massive mid-Atlantic storm that killed 13 and left three million without
power. And when hard luck and bad weather strike, a presidential visit
is sure to follow. It's part of the modern president's job to descend
upon the wounded land, ministering to the afflicted with soothing words
and truckloads of federal aid.

George W. Bush took to that role eagerly, with a record-setting
average of 129 presidential disaster declarations a year. Bush waxed
messianic in May 2007 when he manifested himself in a tornado-ravaged
Kansas burg, aiming to "lift people's spirits... and to hopefully touch
somebody's soul by representing our country... to let people know that
while there was a dark day in the past, there's brighter days ahead."
Barack Obama, who shattered the single-year record for disaster
declarations with 242 last year, added three more to this year's total
last week, in West Virginia and swing states Colorado and Ohio.

Barack Obama, who shattered the single-year record for disaster
declarations with 242 last year, added three more to this year's total
last week, in West Virginia and swing states Colorado and Ohio.

Obama didn't threaten to touch anybody's soul when he alighted in
Colorado Springs Friday, but he did invoke his familiar, familial theme:
"When challenges like this happen, all of us come together as one
American family."

Pardon me for injecting a note of cynicism into this atmosphere of
family togetherness, but would it shock you to hear that presidents play
politics with disaster relief? Current law gives them enormous power to
do so, and it seems they don't try very hard to resist the temptation.

The 1988 Stafford Disaster Relief Act authorized the president to
issue disaster declarations virtually at will, giving him broad
discretion over the disbursement of federal aid. In a study published
last fall, Boston University political scientist Andrew Reeves crunched
the numbers on presidential disaster declarations from 1981 to 2004, and
found strong evidence that presidents distribute aid with one eye
toward the Electoral College.

"In the post-Stafford Act era," Reeves explains, "a competitive state
is expected to receive over twice the number of disaster declarations
as a noncompetitive state." What's more, the FEMA porkbarrel pays off
politically: "Voters reward presidents for disaster declarations to the
tune of over 1 percent at the ballot box."
After Congress expanded presidents' disaster relief powers in 1988,
Reeves notes, they were, unsurprisingly, "more likely to grant [relief]
in year four as the presidential election neared." This year, Obama's
running behind 2011's record-setting pace — but there's time left before
November, and plenty of incentive to convert natural disasters into
political gain.

"What I'm not gonna do is wait for Congress," President Obama told "60 Minutes" last December: "wherever we have an opportunity and I have the executive authority to go ahead and get some things done, we're just gonna go ahead and do 'em."

Executive orders on housing and student loans, regulatory waivers in health care and education, discretion over immigration
enforcement — the president has enormous unilateral power to reward
favored constituencies in the run-up to Election Day, as Obama's "We
Can't Wait" offensive has shown. In most cases, he enjoys those powers
because feckless legislators ceded them.

Presidential control over the FEMA porkbarrel is one more weapon in
that political arsenal. While few in Congress are likely to sign on to
the proposal by Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, to abolish FEMA, they can at
least, as the Heritage Foundation's Matt Mayer argues, reform the
Stafford Act to "establish clear requirements that limit the types of
situations in which declarations can be issued — eliminating some types
of disasters entirely from FEMA's portfolio."

It's past time Congress started clawing back some of the territory it's ceded. We can't wait.

Quotes

"If it's smart to look at the Carfax history of a used car before buying it, why should anyone object to discovering the history of politicians before electing them to serve you?" Stephen Marks

"I believe that public office is the noblest of professions, but I also believe we must hold public officials accountable. Exposing the full truth about them-the good and the bad-ultimately makes for better-educated voters and a stronger democracy." Stephen Marks in Politics Magazine.